2023-24 Fantasy Hockey Dynasty League Top 200 Rankings

The top 200 players to target in fantasy hockey over the next three NHL seasons.

So, what's a dynasty league?

In short, dynasty – or keeper, as they’re sometimes known – leagues allow fantasy managers to retain players season over season. It allows some continuity as opposed to re-draft leagues, where rosters are reset every season.

Some leagues allow managers to retain players indefinitely, while other leagues set limits and force managers to return players back into the draft pool after a certain period of time. This gives every manager a chance at rostering Connor McDavid or Connor Bedard, and maintains a level of competitiveness in the fantasy league.

The wrinkle with dynasty leagues is this: a player's age is an extremely important factor. In a three-year dynasty league, you don't want to draft a player who turns 31 at the beginning of the season because his production is probably going to decline, if it hasn't already. On the flip side, you also don't want to draft a player turning 19 too high because it's unlikely he'll be reaching his peak in the next three seasons. 

A lot of work has done into researching aging curves in the NHL and, if possible, their works are featured here. The rankings are partly based on Gabriel Desjardins’ (@behindthenet) research on when players peak and Eric Tulsky’s (now assistant GM for the Hurricanes) piece on scoring rates relative to age. Josh and Luke (@EvolvingWild) have also done some in-depth research that can be found on hockey-graphs.com. For the purposes of these dynasty rankings, we will be leaning on these studies and projections provided by Yahoo Fantasy and Rotowire.

All studies drew similar conclusions; players generally reach their peak point production in their early 20’s. There are, obviously, exceptions. McDavid just had his best season ever at age 26, and it feels like he’s still getting better. Sidney Crosby just scored 93 points in his age-35 season. 

For the rankings, we assume players peak between the ages of 24-26, as per Desjardins’ findings, and that point production falls off significantly between ages 31-35, as per Tulsky's findings. 

1. The projections look forward three seasons, up until the conclusion of the 2025-26 season. We assume all players stay healthy and players with a chronic injury history, such as Mark Stone, are not discounted. Age is as of opening night on Tuesday, Oct. 10, 2023.

2. Only players who have been drafted or signed by an NHL team will be considered. No prospects from the 2024 draft class and beyond are considered. (Sorry, Mack Celebrini stans).

3. Not all players on this list are signed past the 2023-24 season, and we assume any player over the age of 35 as of Oct. 10, 2023 is not re-signed beyond their current contract. This may skew the results, but including seasons in which they are not under contract would also mean making assumptions regarding free agency and new contracts.

4. Goalies are not included as their aging curves tend to be different and their fantasy values often too volatile due to playing time, their environment and fantasy league settings.

The main factor that determines the rankings is points. Players are ranked based on potential and the sum of their projected point totals over the next three seasons. In other words, player rank is a reflection of their projected production, not their actual ability.

Essentially the question the rankings attempts to answer is: which player would you rather roster for the next three years?

Connor McDavid still outscores everyone. On the back of a ridiculous 153-point season, even a regression puts him in the neighbourhood of 130-140 points. He is the only player projected to score over 400 points over the next three seasons. He is already just 150 points away from 1,000.

Sidenote: The top three players to score 1,000 points in the fewest numbers of games: Wayne Gretzky (424), Mario Lemieux (513) and Mike Bossy (656). If McDavid reaches quadruple digits this season, it would be the third-fastest in history – absolutely amazing.

The tier below McDavid consists of Leon Draisaitl, Nathan MacKinnon and Jack Hughes. That's it. 

The third tier: Elias Pettersson, Jason Robertson, Tim Stützle, Matthew Tkachuk and Mikko Rantanen. 

Keeping in mind no player over the age of 35 as of Oct. 10 is assumed to sign another contract, Sidney Crosby and Brad Marchand are the only players in that category to rank in the top 200 even though their contracts expire in 2024-25. They are ageless wonders and truly exceptional players, and exceptional players do not follow average aging curves.  

With age being such an important consideration in dynasty leagues, only five players over 30 are ranked in the top 50: Nikita Kucherov, Artemi Panarin, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, Mika Zibanejad and Alex Ovechkin.

The only players under 21 years old ranked in the top 100 on this list are Connor Bedard (18th), Matty Beniers (41st), Mason McTavish (64th), Adam Fantilli (66th), Wyatt Johnston (76th) and Logan Cooley (86th). 

Notable omissions: Cam Fowler, ANA; Brent Burns, CAR; Patrick Kane; Jamie Benn, DAL; Joe Pavelski, DAL; Drew Doughty, LA; Mats Zuccarello, MIN; Ryan O'Reilly, NSH; Blake Wheeler, NYR; Claude Giroux, OTT